


Maternal Instincts

by OctarineSparks



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 07:30:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1460935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OctarineSparks/pseuds/OctarineSparks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps Moriarty's return is just a trick. But who is pulling the strings?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maternal Instincts

Mummy Holmes is proud of her china. As white and clean as a brand new day. Prim, proper, waiting to be used as an instrument in the most sickest of rituals. The scalding hot water she pours into the pot hisses against the sides, curling tendrils of steam rise upward to the sky and are gone. 

The doorbell rings, with a tinkling laugh, mocking the pretence that everything is normal. Too late to turn back now, but honestly woman, just what the hell do you think you are doing?

What do you expect to find out over an expensive blend and pastries? Answers? Understanding?

Forgiveness?

Mummy opens the door, her best British smile etched on to her lips like a shield. This is normal. This is fine. 

The other woman is small, and painfully thin. Unlike Mummy, she has not succumbed to the conventions of her age, and stands instead before her, poker straight and bold as brass. Dressed all in black, fitted at her withered waste, puckered in the place where her cleavage used to be. There's just a flatness there now, almost concave, no hint of femininity. 

She has makeup on, and far too much, her eyes rimmed in navy blue and her thin lips painted red. She looks ridiculous, and it's more like a mask than an enhancement of whatever beauty she tries to tell herself she has. 

Mummy immediately doesn't care for her much at all. 

"You must be Ann," she says warmly, holding out a hand. 

Thin fingers with talons painted scarlet and sharpened, curl around her own soft digits, weak and yielding, and the handshake is brief. 

"Please, come in," Mummy says, and Ann nods curtly, the corners of her lips twitching in an attempt to smile. Mummy doubts that she has truly smiled in years, and not for one second does she blame her. 

The unlikely pair make their way to the kitchen, and suddenly Mummy is ashamed of her own success. Look at my house, with its quaint country charm. Look at my china, dainty and perfect, not something a person like you would be used to. 

"Do sit down," Mummy says, pointing to a chair, which Ann folds herself into like a marionette. The woman is all arms and legs, elbows and sharp angles. It's hard to believe that she is a mother. 

Mummy sit down and moves one of the fine porcelain cups in front of the other woman, her steady hand not even causing it to rattle in its saucer. "Milk? Sugar?" she asks. 

Ann nods yes to the first and brings up a hand sharply to indicate a declination of the former. She is tight in her movements, wound like a spring, anticipation coming off of her in waves. The uncomfortableness of the situation is well shared between the two women, but Mummy is much better at hiding it. She has to be. 

"I know this must seem strange," Mummy says, slightly transfixed by the way the brown liquid swirls around the sides of the white china, so clear she can still see the bottom. She adds the milk, the white tendrils dispersing through the brown, turning it a warm caramel. She places a small spoon at the edge of the cup, polished silver with an engraved handle, and settled down to prepare her own drink. Without a word of thanks, Ann stirs her tea quickly, but she doesn't drink. 

Mummy takes her tea with nothing at all, an old English protocol ingrained into her by years at public school. They taught her to be a lady there, how to sit and how to speak, and Mummy reflects just how useless it has been to spend all of these years with perfectly crossed ankles. 

"I'm sure you're wondering why I asked you here, Mrs. Moriarty," Mummy says with just the smallest of sighs. 

"Ann, please," the other woman responds, and Mummy remembers that she had already addressed her as such. A complete lapse in her manners, and she is shocked. 

It's not lost on Mummy either that the first words she has spoken have been a request not to call her by so unsavoury a name. 

"Ann," Mummy says, with a small smile, and she lifts her cup and takes a sip. 

"What do you want from me?" Ann asks, after a moments pause, during which all she has done is stare. Mummy purses her lips. She is not used to this sort of brazen behaviour, especially over so civilised a sacrament as afternoon tea. 

She places her cup back in its saucer, adjusting it just a little so it is sitting pretty. 

"I simply wish to talk to you," she says softly. This much is true, but Mummy leaves off the fact that the tea will have long since gone cold by the time she is finished. 

Ann shifts in her chair, folding leg over the other, her hands wedged tightly between her thin thighs and Mummy knows with a flash of anger that she has no intention of drinking her tea. "About what?" Ann snaps, and Mummy is struck by the harshness of tone. This is how she speaks to everyone, all the time, and she has more than reason enough to speak this way to her. 

"You know what," Mummy replies, letting her facade slip as righteous anger surges through her. 

"My son is dead, Mrs. Holmes," Ann says waspishly. There is no pain in her voice, no sense of loss. There's not even relief. The words, like the woman who spoke them, are empty. 

"I'm sorry," Mummy says, softly, but without feeling. 

"No you're not," Ann replies haughtily, something with which Mummy cannot argue. 

Mummy clears her throat and sips some more of her tea. The atmosphere is so frosty it chills her, right down to her very bones. She wants to ask Ann Moriarty to leave her home, and to take her fetid presence with her. 

"Our sons have a connection," she says lightly, and there is an edge of threat to her voice. "Even in death, Jim Moriarty plagues William so."

"William?" Ann asks, a cocked eyebrow the only instrument she needs to covey her contempt. 

Mummy doesn't rise to the challenge, but needlessly stirs her tea, looking down into the cup for the answers she now knows she will not get from the woman next to her. 

"My boy has suffered most terribly at the hands of yours," she says evenly, not looking up. Next to her she feels Ann stiffen, and it is with no small amount of satisfaction that she notes that the other woman is afraid. Of her. And her instincts. 

"James is no longer a threat to anyone," Ann says, and still her voice betrays nothing. Mummy has to bite back the retort borne of the use of her son's proper name, knowing that it is far from the same thing, and she is never so petty. 

"Does it bother you?" Mummy asks lightly as she refills her cup from the pot. "The things he did, the pain he caused?"

Ann, to her credit, doesn't answer. 

"It's never too late to set things right," Mummy continues, knowing that for Jim Moriarty, it is far, far too late. 

Ann makes a small noise in her throat, derision for a sentiment that was lost to her long ago, when her son became a murderer before he was old enough to become anything else. 

"I'm not a cruel woman, and nor do I seek revenge. That would be touch indelicate at this stage, I feel." Mummy has a coldness inside of her, a fear that this just might not work, and that thought is simply too unbearable. Mycroft thinks he is so clever, and perhaps he is, but like all little boys, he cannot fool his mother. 

"There is no revenge to be gained from me," Ann said, but there is a panicked quality to her words that makes Mummy feel almost proud. Even at her age, she is still at least a force to be reckoned with. 

"And much more so, there is nothing else to be gained from me either. I hear your son has been making a name for himself away from my son's legacy." Mummy has to stop herself from snorting, the word 'legacy' sounding far too regal and misplaced. 'Reputation' would certainly be more apt. 

"It is in fact your son's 'legacy' that I wish to discuss." Even Mummy, in all her propriety, cannot keep at least some contempt from her words. 

"Then you are out of luck, Mrs. Holmes," Ann says, unfolding herself and rising to her feet. Mummy feels cross that she still hasn't touched her tea, and she looks down at the untouched cup pointedly. 

"Thank you for your hospitality," Ann says, almost surprising herself, courtesy dragged from her by Mummy's matronly stare. 

"Please, sit," Mummy says sharply, as though Ann had only just arrived. 

Ann hesitates only fractionally, then falls down into the chair as though she has given up, and Mummy feels a stab of pity. Unremarkable though it was, it was still apparent how alike Ann and her son were. The same puppy-dog eyes, the twisted mouth. And the constant drag of staying alive, albeit for very different reasons. For Jim, of course, the confusion of his twisted, brilliant mind. For Ann, the day to day drudgery of living in a world that had no want or need of her. 

"Thank you," Mummy says courteously. 

"Please, let's get this over with. My son was not a pleasant man." She says the words slowly, with shame and confession, words she's probably never said to another human being, though Mummy thinks she may have said them a thousand times in the mirror. 

"Very well," she says, a business like tone engaged as she places her hands flat on the table. "William's work has become... A problem." She doesn't say dangerous. It has always been dangerous. "He is in trouble."

Ann doesn't care, isn't pleased or sorry either way. Mummy wonders if she has forgotten how to feel. 

"England still fears your son, long after he is gone. That is his legacy."

Ann looks at her fingernails, an important part of her perfect lie. Paint for the faded, the lost and the useless. 

"I want that fear."

Ann snaps her head around sharply. "Don't you already have it?" she sneers. 

Mummy laughs, and then feels immediately guilty, acting as though she were the bad guy in a play. There is only one person at fault here, and it is neither her son not Ann's. It is a different man altogether, though still a dead one, a hole burned through his skull, and William put it there. 

"Not nearly enough," she says with a smile. 

"How much more could you possibly want?"

Mummy gets to her feet and crosses her neat kitchen. There are folders on the counter, next to the oak chopping board and the pretty row of ornamental French hens. She slips it off the counter, caressing the olive green folder as a child would a favourite blanket. 

"My son is not a bad man. He is, however, a fool." She sits down once more and slides the folder over to Ann. 

The other woman looks at it for a moment, then peels back the cover between thumb and forefinger. She reads quickly, much of it meaningless, but leans closer as Mummy had suspected she would when she reaches the most important part. 

She sits back after a moment, and then a slow, lazy expression of disbelief crosses her face. 

"You're insane," is all she says. 

"I'm a mother," Mummy replies shortly. 

Ann looks at the paper again. Actually picks it up and holds it in her hand, as though she can change the contents by holding it closer. 

"What makes you think I can help you with this?"

Mummy just smiles. "A hunch. A mother's instinct, shall we say."

"I don't have anything like that," Ann says quickly, putting the paper back down and shutting the folder with a snap. 

"I believe you, but then again, I don't think you realise exactly what you have access too." 

Ann shakes her head. "I hadn't seen him for years before he died."

Mummy is getting impatient now. Time really is of the essence. 

"My son is a murderer, Ann, just like yours."

"Not like mine," Ann insists painfully. 

Mummy nods, her face grim. "Nevertheless, I will not let him suffer for his foolish heart."

"John Watson," Ann says with a small voice. Mummy smiles. 

"So you do know? Excellent."

Ann looks around the kitchen, but there is nothing she can do or say to save herself. She seems to crumble before Mummy's very eyes. 

"What do you need?" she asks, defeated by the formidable woman before her. 

"Everything," Mummy replies. 

\------------------------------------------

It's a week later, and everyone is baffled. The Secret Service is placed on its highest alert, its agents running scared. 

Mummy sits before the fireplace, knitting and listening to the radio. There is a buzz beside her and she frowns, irritated. Picking up her mobile phone, the one Mycroft insisted she get, she sighs, retrieving a pair of reading glasses from the side table and perching them on her nose. There is a small message splashed across the screen of her phone, and she reads it with a hungry smile. 

Holiday has been cancelled. Something came up. William coming home. MH

She places the phone on the table and continues her knitting. Yes, there will be panic for a while, worry and confusion and frustration for her youngest son. This is a mystery he will never solve, but no matter. 

Her boy is coming home.


End file.
